moving picture of human manners and fpecious miracles. The verses of Pope accustomed my ear to the found of poetic harmony: in the death of Hector, and the fhipwreck of Ulyffes, I tafted the new emotions of terror and pity; and seriously disputed with my aunt on the vices and virtues of the heroes of the Trojan war. From Pope's Homer to Dryden's Virgil was an easy tranfition; but I know not how, from some fault in the author, the translator, or the reader, the pious Æneas did not fo forcibly feize on my imagination; and I derived more pleasure from Ovid's Metamorphofes, especially in the fall of Phæton, and the fpeeches of Ajax and Ulyffes. (1748) My grandfather's recent flight and infolvency, unlocked the door of a tolerable library; and 1 turned over many English pages of poetry and romance, of hiftory and travels. Where a title attracted my eye, without fear or awe, I fnatched the volume from the fhelf; and Mrs. Porten, who indulged herself in moral and religious fpeculations, was more prone to encourage than to check a curiofity above the strength of a boy."

The relics of Mr. Porten's fortune afforded but a bare annuity for his own maintenance; and his daughter Catherine, who had already paffed her fortieth year, was left deftitute." Her noble spirit fcorned a life of obligation and dependence; and after revolving several fchemes, the preferred the humble induftry of keeping a boarding-house for Westminster-school *, where the laboriously earned a competence for her old age. This fingular opportunity of blending the advantages of private and public education, decided my father. After the Chriftmas holidays, in January 1749, I accompanied Mrs. Porten to her new house in College-street;

* It is faid in the family, that she was principally induced to this undertaking by her affection for her nephew, whofe weak conftitution required her constant and unremitted attention. -S.

and

and was immediately entered in the fchool, of which Dr. John Nicoll was at that time head mafter. At first I was alone: but my aunt's refolution was praised; her character was esteemed; her friends were numerous and active: in the courfe of fome years the became the mother of forty or fifty boys, for the most part of family and fortune; and as her primitive habitation was too narrow, fhe built and occupied a fpacious manfion in Dean's Yard. I fhall always be ready to join in the common opinion, that our public fchools, which have produced fo many eminent characters, are the beft adapted to the genius and conftitution of the English people. A boy of fpirit may acquire a previous and practical experience of the world; and his play-fellows may be the future friends of his heart or his interest. In a free intercourfe with his equals, the habits of truth, fortitude, and prudence, will infenfibly be matured. Birth and riches are measured by the ftandard of perfonal merit; and the mimic fcene of a rebellion has difplayed, in their true colours, the minifters and patriots of the rifing generation. Our fe

minaries of learning do not exactly correspond with the precept of a Spartan king, that the child should be inftructed in the arts which will be useful to the man;' fince a finished scholar may emerge from the head of Westminster or Eton, in total ignorance of the business and converfation of English gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century. But thefe fchools may affume the merit of teaching all that they pretend to teach, the Latin and Greek languages: they depofit in the hands of a difciple the keys of two valuable chefts; nor can he complain, if they are afterwards loft or neglected by his own fault. The neceffity of leading in equal ranks fo many unequal powers of capacity and application, will prolong to eight or ten years the juvenile ftudies, which might be difpatched in half that time by the fkilful master of a fingle pupil. Yet even the repetition of exercise and difcipline contributes to

fix in a vacant mind the verbal fcience of grammar and profody and the private or voluntary ftudent, who poffeffes the fenfe and fpirit of the claffics, may offend, by a falfe quantity, the fcrupulous ear of a well-flogged critic. For myself, I must be content with a very Imall fhare of the civil and literary fruits of a public fchool. In the space of two years (1749, 1750), interrupted by danger and debility, I painfully climbed into the third form; and my riper age was left to acquire the beauties of the Latin, and the rudiments of the Greek tongue. Instead of audaciously mingling in the fports, the quarrels, and the connections of our little world, I was ftill cherished at home under the maternal wing of my aunt; and my removal from Westminster long preceded the approach of manhood."

The violence and variety of his complaints, which had excufed his frequent abfence from Weftminsterschool, at length induced Mrs. Porten to carry him to Bath (1750), where the various methods of pumping and bathing, ineffectually opposed the most excruciating pain, and the contraction of his legs. From Bath he was removed to the house of a phyfician at Winchester, and alternately with his father to Buriton and Putney. During an interval to the fits of fickness, a short unfuccefsful trial was attempted to renew his attendance at Weftminster-fchool. But his infirmities could not be reconciled with the hours of a public feminary, nor his inclination with its difcipline; and the defultory attendance of fuch teachers as the different places of his refi dence could fupply, were his precarious efforts in learning for more than a year (1751).

At length the diforders of his emaciated frame took a new turn; as he approached his fixteenth year, nature fhewed her wonderful energies, and his conftitution was fortified and fixed. This unexpected recovery again encouraged the hopes of education, and he was placed at Efher in Surrey, in the house of the Reverend Philip Francis, the well known tranflator of

Horace.

Horace. The young man's friends foon difcovered his preceptor's want of attention; and his father was urged to adopt a measure, which he termed singular and defperate. Without preparation or delay, he was carried to Oxford, and matriculated in the univerfity as gentleman commoner of Magdalen College, before he had accomplished his fifteenth year (April 3, 1752). The pursuit of his favourite, and only amufement, was now resumed; we dwell with confiderable pleasure on his own account of that course of reading (if it can be called a courfe which had no fettled plan), which made him familiar with the Greek and Roman historians.

"The curiofity which had been implanted in my infant mind, was still alive and active. Instead of re pining at my long and frequent confinement to the chamber or the couch, I fecretly rejoiced in those infirmities, which delivered me from the exercises of the school, and the fociety of my equals. As often as I was tolerablyexempt from danger and pain, reading, free defultory reading, was the employment and comfort of my folitary hours. At Weftminster, my aunt fought only to amufe and indulge me; in my stations at Bath and Winchefter, at Buriton and Putney, a false compaffion refpected my fufferings; and I was allowed, without controul or advice, to gratify the wanderings of an unripe taste. My indifcriminate appetite fubfided by degrees in the hiftoric line: and fince philofophy has exploded all innate ideas and natural propenfities, I muft afcribe this choice to the affiduous perufal of the Universal History, as the octavo volumes fucceffively appeared. This unequal work, and a treatise of Hearne, the Ductor hiftoricus, referred and introduced me to the Greek and Roman hiftorians, to as many at least as were acceffible to an English reader. All that I could find were greedily devoured, from Littlebury's lame Herodotus, and Spelman's valuable Xenophon, to the pompous folios of Gordon's Tacitus, and a ragged Procopious of the beginning of the last century. The cheap acqui

fition of fo much knowledge confirmed my diflike to the ftudy of languages; and I argued with Mrs. Porten, that, were I mafter of the Greek and Latin, I must interpret to myself in English, the thoughts of the ori ginal, and that fuch extemporary verfions must be inferior to the elaborate tranflations of profeffed fcholars; a filly fophifm, which could not eafily be confuted by a perfon ignorant of any other language than her own. From the ancient I leaped to the modern world: many crude lumps of Speed, Rapin, Mezeray, Davila, Ma chiavel, Father Paul, Bower, &c. I devoured like fo many novels; and I fwallowed with the fame voracious appetite the descriptions of India and China, of Mexico and Peru.

"My first introduction to the hiftoric fcenes, which have fince engaged fo many years of my life, must be afcribed to an accident. In the fummer of 1751, I accompanied my father on a vifit to Mr. Hoare's, in Wiltshire; but I was lefs delighted with the beauties of Stourhead, than with difcovering in the library a common book, the Continuation of Echard's Roman Hiftory, which is indeed executed with more skill and tafte than the previous work. To me the reigns of the fucceffors of Conftantine were abfolutely new; and I was immersed in the paffage of the Goths over the Danube, when the fummons of the dinner-bell reluctantly dragged me from my intellectual feast. This tranfient glance ferved rather to irritate than to appease my curiofity; and as foon as I returned to Bath, I procured the fecond and third volumes of Howel's Hiftory of the World, which exhibit the Byzantine period on a larger fcale. Mahomet and his Saracens foon fixed my attenand fome inftinct of criticifm directed me to the genuine fources. Simon Ockley, an original in every fenfe, first opened my eyes; and I was led from one book to another, till I had ranged round the circle of Oriental hiftory. Before I was fixteen, I had ex

tion;

haufted